IN THE NATION

OAKLAND, Calif.—“You can send a girl to Vassar for less than you can send her to Ventura,” says Robert Keidgord of the Bay Area Social Planning Council. So what? So “Ventura” happens to be a “training center” for young women offenders in California, which operates the third‐largest prison system in the world.

Put down a year at Vassar for your well‐bred daughter as, say, $5,000 all told. In California, it takes $6,000 a year to keep a young offender in a training center. Even for a fullfledged criminal sent to a full‐fledged prison, the state has to pay $3,070 a year. If it were to build a new prison, California would have to spend just about $15,000 per bed; for a 1,800‐bed prison—of which California already has eight—that would come to $27 million.

Actually, considering the cost of “remodeling” most existing prisons, the cost of a new one would be nominal. Take San Quentin, a 19thcentury institution which may be the nation's most famous dungeon; Mr. Keldgord says that to bring San Quentin up to “minimal standards, of decency” would cost $58 million.

In sharp contrast, he points out, it costs the state less than $600 a year per offender for “high‐quality probation and parole services.” That is an important distinction; because the fact is that California has the huge total of 274,000 offenders under the control of its correctional system, ineluding county jails and juvenile centers. Of those, only 53,000 are “Institutionalized” in prisons or jails; the other 221,000 are on some form of probation or parole.

Nevertheless, last year, of the more than $220 million that California spent on all corrections programs, just about 67 per cent, or more than $147 million, went to maintain jails and prisons. Only 33 per cent, or $73 million, was spent on programs for the 80 per cent of all corrections‐system clients who were on parole or probation.

Does that make sense? Not according to Robert Keldgord, who should know. One of the most respected penologists in the country, Mr. Keldgord has just completed supervision of a massive study of the California corrections system by 57 professionals in the field—including such men as the highly regarded Director of Corrections for Michigan, Gus Harrison.

This three‐volume study may well be one of the most important documents in penology currently available. Its net effect is a meticulously documented a§sertion that it is not only cheaper in economic terms but more productive in social terms to keep offenders out of prison. And it puts the burden of that recommendation where it belongs—on the community rather than on the state.

“It was in the community that the behavioral act occurred which brought the individual into the criminal justice system,” the report concludes. “It is in the community where behavior will or will not recur.”

Hence, the Keldgord report places strong emphasis on community, not state, action. It would have. California, increase subsidies to localities. from less than 20 to 75 per cent of probation programs; and it would have the state subsidize 60 per cent of county “open institution” programs, in which offenders would be technically imprisoned yet in close touch with family and community.

In contrast, the state would subsidize only 40 per cent of the cost of county jails, where offenders could be imprisoned for no more than six months; and if a county finally “gave up” on an offender and sent him or her to state prison, it would cost the county 75 per cent of that person's annual upkeep—or a total, on the average, of about $10,300 for every person sent to state prison.

Obviously, such a system would provide powerful incentive for local communities to deal with their own misfits and malcontents; and it ought to help Mr. Keldgord and his colleagues realize one of their prime goals—reducing the time an offender spends in prison from California's. average of 36 months to the national average of 24 months. That reduction alone, Mr. Keldgord and the report assert, would, permit California to close the medieval penal institutions it maintains at San Quentin and Folsom, with a consequent dollar savings that then could be applied to probation and parole programs.

All of this makes obvious sense, except that knowledgeable California political buffs doubt that any of it will happen. For one thing, the report recommends abolition of the State Board of Corrections as presently constituted; but it is precisely that board that now is supposed to hold hearings, and make recommendations on the 224 separate proposals of the report The report also is indirectly critical of California's indeterminate sentence procedures, and its Adult Authority—both of which are favorites of lawand‐order “hawks.”

Besides, in today's fearful climate, what politician wants to recommend such actions as closing San Quentin Prison? Most would rather talk about “locking the door and throwing away the key,” although the hard fact is that 98 per cent of all prisoners, in California or elsewhere, sooner rather than later will return to the community that believes it has got rid of them.

We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports,
and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.